From "Fred Moten’s Radical Critique of the Present" in The New Yorker. Moten, the first speaker in the dialogue above, is a poet, critic, theorist, and NYU professor. He has a book of essays titled "Stolen Life." Here's a quote from it:
"Black studies is a dehiscence at the heart of the institution on its edge; its broken, coded documents sanction walking in another world while passing through this one, graphically disordering the administered scarcity from which black studies flows as wealth."The New Yorker saves us the trouble of looking up "dehiscence" by telling us it's "a surgical complication in which a wound ruptures along a surgical incision." But I still feel compelled to look up "liminal." I mean, I kind of know the word, but why are these 2 men so easily agreeing on the liminality of mayonnaise?!
The OED gives this as the first meaning: "That has the lowest amount necessary to produce a particular effect; minimal; insignificant." Sample quote (from T.C. Boyle): "The liminal smile, the coy arch of the eyebrows."
Second meaning: "Characterized by being on a boundary or threshold, esp. by being transitional or intermediate between two states, situations, etc." Sample quote: "Airports are places of waiting and uncertainty—liminal, indeterminate spaces, caught between one world and another." Yeah, that's kind of like mayonnaise. I mean, if you're going through airport security and you've got mayonnaise, do you have to limit yourself 3 ounces and put it in the see-through, quart-size bag?
Third meaning: "Cultural Anthropol. Of or relating to a transitional or intermediate state between culturally defined stages of a person's life, esp. as marked by a ritual or rite of passage; characterized by liminality." That's limited to cultural anthropology, and while I'm prepared to riff on the cultural anthropology of mayonnaise...
... the definition does specify "stages of a person's life," and there's no personification of mayonnaise... is there?
Posts
57 comments:
Not sublime but ephemeral.
This is the kind of conversation that would send me into a panic if someone ever tried to engage me in it.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but Mama Cass.
Is today the day at altHouse of exploring the Law of Unintended Consequences?
These words will show up on the exam, otherwise known as the New Yorker Crossword.
Indeed. Though mayo has a connection to the sublime, ketchup truly touches the infinite. The juxtaposition of sweetness and savoriness, its very nature is paradox.
Sandwich grease. No thanks.
No one bring up pudding.
I suspect he had a bad experience with mayo as a youth. That or he doesnt understand what people mean when they say the Mayo went bad. "Mayo studies is a dehiscence at the heart of the institution on its edge; its broken, coded documents sanction walking in another world while passing through this one, graphically disordering the administered scarcity from which condiment flows as wealth."
A good mustard is always the answer. Except on BLT's. Then slather on the Hellman's.
Mayonnaise goes great on hamburgers.
What a deep thinker Prof Moten is. We need many more mayonnaise-studies majors like him to truly MAGA!
mayonnaise-studies majors
A degree in Mayo studies could lead to a job at the Mayo Clinic.
I bet if someone--anyone-- could understand what his point was that they would be offended.
Althouse theme for todays postings: "why clarity important, even if you have nothing important to say."
This is what happens when a shoeshine boy goes to college.
As a small child, visiting with another neighborhood kid at his house, I was offered lunch by his mom. I was told she was making banana sammiches. I love peanut butter & Nana sammiches, so I tooky first big bite with enthusiasm. As I chewed, I realized something was wrong. Very, very wrong. She had served me sliced bananas on white bread slathered not with peanut butter, but with mayonnaise. I barely avoided puking and as politely as possible excused myself from the meal, that woman, her kid, and that house. I don't recall ever visiting there again.
There's a fine line for the self-educated between the love of gaudy language (Twain and Whitman) and sheer pretentiousness:
"dehiscence" crosses that line.
"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."
"Black studies..."
Why did I expect to see that?
In my blog about the movie Dirty Dancing, I have posted an article titled "Heroism in Dirty Dancing". There, the question of the story's liminality is addressed. The article's key passages:
[quote]
... .. If one looks deeper, one sees that it [the story] follows almost precisely the ten-step heroic initiation process. Main character Baby’s heroic journey from girl to womanhood ... divided into three sections dealing with separation, LIMINALITY, and reintegration.
By comparing Baby’s tale with Greek myth, we learn that, far from simply being a movie about achieving one’s dreams, Dirty Dancing is a primal tale of an arduous and difficult journey from sexual ignorance to enlightenment, filled with symbols representing Baby’s metamorphosis into a sexually awakened adult. ...
Baby does not die or become immortal to achieve apotheosis, but she does achieve a god-like status by being lifted into the air by Johnny during the movie’s final dance. He slowly lifts her up, a spotlight illuminating her head, as the music swells .... showing the triumph she has achieved from making it through the LIMINALITY of her journey’s trials — gaining knowledge of what is means to be mature — before becoming the adult she is now. She is literally looked up upon by the audience — having made it through her journey, she is raised into the sky, symbolically representing her now semi-divine status from achieving her transformation. ...
[end quote; emphasis added]
http://dirty-dancing-analysis.blogspot.com/2017/11/heroism-in-dirty-dancing.html
I'm fairly sure that somehow I am paying for this bullshit, and I am far from happy about it.
Those two idiots should be having that conversation wile sitting on white plastic chairs at a freeway onramp, with "WILL WORK FOR FOOD" signs hung around their scrawny necks.
Mr. Moten would be a better writer if he would, say, take a few years hiking around New Guinea.
Give him something to write about.
The crits apparently still write like that.
Mayo is good on word salad.
Michael Owens said...
As a small child, visiting with another neighborhood kid at his house, I was offered lunch by his mom. I was told she was making banana sammiches. I love peanut butter & Nana sammiches, so I tooky first big bite with enthusiasm. As I chewed, I realized something was wrong. Very, very wrong. She had served me sliced bananas on white bread slathered not with peanut butter, but with mayonnaise. I barely avoided puking and as politely as possible excused myself from the meal, that woman, her kid, and that house. I don't recall ever visiting there again.
__________________________________________________________________________________
This reminds of a biography of Yogi Berra I read when I was 9 or 10. When he had a regular job, making some extra $ for his poor household when was a teenage dropout, his mother would make her "Lawdie" a lunch sandwich of Italian bread, bananas and hot mustard.
Amazing the things that stick with you many years later.
Paul Z. said ... " Mayo is good on word salad."
I agree.
That must be the subliminal meaning.
It can be just bullshit, could it?
can = can't
Operator error or autocorrect? You decide.
@Mike Sylwester - Your analysis of Dirty Dancing brings to mind the greatest Amazon review of all time. of Vanilla Ice's movie "Cool as Ice".
Blogger tcrosse said... "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."
Trump blowed that up too
I looked up dehiscence.
It first had to do with a pod or a seed bursting open.
Mid 17th C from Latin.
Garlic mayo is good on sweet potato fries.
This has been going on since the Oracle at Delphi. It's an assembly of words searching for a meaning. The reader is gratified by finding a meaning, and assume they have acquired insight.
It's the exact opposite of cogent communications.
It's not a Trump tweet.
Nonapod, thanks for the link to the review of the Vanilla Ice movie.
I love Vanilla Ice, who continues to be very successful in his life.
It's a three-pronged attack.
No one ever hired a lawyer named Saul Hellman.
Blogger Seeing Red said...
Garlic mayo is good on sweet potato fries.
I make cole slaw with mayo and horse radish. It is great,
"dehiscence" by telling us it's "a surgical complication in which a wound ruptures along a surgical incision."
The New Yorker is using the definition for "wound dehiscence". Dehiscence is a term in botany meaning "the spontaneous opening at maturity of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents." (Wikipedia) It means splitting along natural lines in botany. Of course in New York it's natural to know more about gunshot wounds than the opening of buds. After all they like Hillary and Mitch, the Wolf bitch there.
Reading Moten is like visiting Louis CK back stage.
You can always go PWT and hit the Miracle Whip. You can't make truly great onion dip without Miracle Whip...or fried bologna sandwiches.
Does Miracle Whip relate to the transition between poor and poor white trash?
You can take the girl out of the park but you can't take the park out of the girl.
I only get the ranch dressing dip that comes with salad wheels.
The wheel lasts a week. They used to have blue cheese dip but that seems to have ended.
Althouse: But I still feel compelled to look up "liminal." I mean, I kind of know the word, but why are these 2 men so easily agreeing on the liminality of mayonnaise?!
If you don't know what "liminal" means, how can you know what "subliminal" (sub-liminal) means?
You can't make mayonnaise without breaking some eggs.
The only sandwhich I put mayo on is turkey (and tuna, naturally). On anything else it has no positive contribution to make, and sicklies one o'er the day.
Homemade mayonnaise is yummy, but it spoils much more quickly than store-bought. Yay, preservatives! (so many options for home-made and storebought)
I've never tried canning homemade mayo, but it sounds like a good way to poison friends and family.
Does Miracle Whip relate to the transition between poor and poor white trash?
The bar has been raised. The transition is now between aioli and mayonnaise. Whatever you call it, it cannot be as easy to spell as "Miracle Whip".
"It's a three-pronged attack: Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal." - Lt. L.T. Smash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WDi4tAqPkM
As expected, all you armchair keyboard jockeys are failing to acknowledge the full horror of mayonnaise.
I do not like green eggs and ham,
I do not like them, Sam I Am.
'Twas a simpler time.
I like Smart Balance mayonnaise, rather than real mayonnaise. Doesn't taste as good as the kind with sugar, but I spike it with finely diced pieces of garlic, making it a kind of ersatz aioli. Tastes good and helps me increase my intake of garlic.
What is it with intellectual types and mayonnaise? And this guy, you have to wade thru the oozing tripe to where, hey, he just don't like the stuff. Ok then. My mom was an Adele Davis freak but she liked her mayonnaise. A good size artichoke could take half a jar to finish
right. She really got into the homemade mayo in her 80's. She'd give me a quart jar and she'd still have a mess load in the frig. I helped make it a couple times. And it was cool when the egg and oil made the change into mayo. It's more like a met·a·mor·pho·sis. And then in my frig I could watch the stuff age. Purple, blue, turquoise. Like a real slow moving lava lamp. After my mom died I tried making it a few times. Same stupid beater she used. And it always ended an uncongealed mess. Annoying.
Trump is a lousy Hitler. He just got 3 people OUT of a concentration camp. The guy can’t do anything right.
Ken B,?
The honky love for mayonnaise is a major plot point in Undercover Brother.
"Those two idiots should be having that conversation wile sitting on white plastic chairs at a freeway onramp, with "WILL WORK FOR FOOD" signs hung around their scrawny necks."
Are you pitching this to my local theater company? It sounds just like their reinterpretation of Waiting For Godot.
Post a Comment